CS 535 – Computer Networks

Ungraded Assignment (Study Questions and Solutions for Final)

1. As discussed in the Textbook, doubling of the timeout interval after a timeout event can be
considered as a form of congestion control. Why does TCP need a window-based congestion-
control mechanism in addition to this “doubling-timeout-interval” mechanism?

If TCP were a stop-and-wait protocol, then the doubling of the time out interval would
suffice as a congestion control mechanism. However, TCP uses pipelining (and is
therefore not a stop-and-wait protocol), which allows the sender to have multiple
outstanding unacknowledged segments. The doubling of the timeout interval does not
prevent a TCP sender from sending a large number of first-time-transmitted packets into
the network, even when the end-to-end path is highly congested. Therefore a congestioncontrol
mechanism is needed to stem the flow of “data received from the application
above” when there are signs of network congestion.

2. Host A is sending an enormous file to host B over a TCP connection. Over this connection there
is never any packet loss and the timers never expire. Denote that transmission rate of the link
connecting host A to the Internet by R bps. Suppose that the process in host A is capable of
sending data into its TCP socket at rate S bps, where S = 10.x R. Further suppose that the TCP
receive buffer is large enough to hold the entire file, and the send buffer can hold only one
percent of the file. What would prevent the process in host A from continuously passing data to
its TCP socket at rate S bps? TCP flow control? TCP congestion control? Or something else?
Elaborate.

In this problem, there is no danger in overflowing the receiver since the receiver’s receive
buffer can hold the entire file. Also, because there is no loss and acknowledgements are
returned before timers expire, TCP congestion control does not throttle the sender.
However, the process in host A will not continuously pass data to the socket because the
send buffer will quickly fill up. Once the send buffer becomes full, the process will pass
data at an average rate or R << S.

3. Consider sending an object of size O = 100 kbytes from server to client. Let S = 536 bytes and
RTT = 100 msec. Suppose the transport protocol uses static windows with window size W
a. For a transmission rate of 28 kbps, determine the minimum possible latency.
Determine the minimum window size that achieves this latency.
b. Repeat (a) for 100 kbps.
4. Suppose TCP increased its congestion window by two rather than by one for each received
acknowledgement during slow start. Thus, the first window consists of one segment, the second
of three segments, the third of nine segments, and so on. Using the techniques in the textbook:
a. Express K in terms of O and S, where K is the number of windows of data that cover
the object, O object size, and S the segment size.
b. Express Q in terms of RTT, S, and R, where Q is the number of time the server
would stall if the number of segments is infinite, RTT is the round-trip time, and R is
the transmission rate of the link.
5. Consider the TCP procedure for estimating RTT. Suppose that α = 0.1. Let SampleRTT1 be the
most recent sample RTT, let SampleRTT2 be the next recent sample RTT, and so on.
a. For a given TCP connection, suppose four acknowledgments have been returned
with corresponding sample RTTs SampleRTT4, SampleRTT3, SampleRTT2, and
SampleRTT1. Express EstimatedRTT in terms of the four RTTs.
b. Generalize your formula for n sample round-trip times.
6. You are hired to design a reliable byte-stream protocol that uses a sliding window (like TCP).
This protocol will run over a 1-Gbps network. The RTT of the network is 140 ms, and the
maximum segment lifetime is 60 seconds. How many bits would you include in the
AdvertisedWindow and SequenceNum fields of your protocol header? State your
assumptions clearly.
7. The sequence number field in the TCP header is 32 bits long, which is big enough to cover over
4 million bytes of data. Even if this many bytes were never transferred over a single connection,
why might the sequence number still wrap around from 232 -1 to 0?
8. Consider two mobile nodes in a foreign network having a foreign agent. Is it possible for the
two mobile nodes to use the same care-of-address? Explain your answer.

Two mobiles could certainly have the same care-of-address in the same visited network.
Indeed, if the care-of-address is the address of the foreign agent, then this address would
be the same. Once the foreign agent decapsulates the tunneled datagram and determines
the address of the mobile, then separate addresses would need to be used to send the
datagrams separately to their different destinations (mobiles) within the visited network.

9. In mobile IP, what effect will mobility have on end-to-end delays of datagrams between the
source and destination?

Because datagrams must be first forward to the home agent, and from there to the mobile,
the delays will generally be longer than via direct routing. Note that it is possible,
however, that the direct delay from the correspondent to the mobile (i.e., if the datagram
is not routed through the home agent) could actually be smaller than the sum of the delay
from the correspondent to the home agent and from there to the mobile. It would depend
on the delays on these various path segments. Note that indirect routing also adds a home
agent processing (e.g., encapsulation) delay.

10. Question 19 on page 412 of Textbook.

The center-based tree for the topology shown in the original figure connects A to C; B to
C; E to C; and F to C (all directly). This center-based tree is different from the minimal
spanning tree shown in the figure.

11. Question 20 on page 412 of Textbook.

12. Question 21 on page 412 of Textbook.
13. Question 22 on page 412 of Textbook.
14. Question 23 on page 412 of Textbook
15. An organization has a class C network 200.1.1 and wants to form subnets for four departments,
with hosts as follows: A 72 hosts, B 35 hosts, C 20 host, D 18 hosts. There are 145 hosts in all.
(a) Give a possible arrangement of subnet masks to make this possible.
(b) Suggest what the organization might do if department D grows to 34 hosts.
16. Question 5 on page 513 of Textbook.
17. Question 14 on page 515 of Textbook.
18. Question 15 on page 515 of Textbook.